Registry access in non-admin mode

Question

I\'ve several long-standing apps written in Delphi that persist their settings in the registry. I\'ve used HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE for \'hard\' settings such as configuration pre

Answer 1

You can read from HKLM as a non-admin user; you just can't write to it.

Use TRegistry.Create(KEY_READ) when constructing it, and set the RootKey to HKLM.

var
  Reg: TRegistry;
begin
  Reg := TRegistry.Create(KEY_READ)
  try
    Reg.RootKey := HKLM;
    // Read value here
  finally
    Reg.Free;
  end;
end;

You can also use TRegistry.OpenKeyReadOnly() when opening a specific registry key; this helps with non-admin access to areas of the registry as well.